I watched in awe at the ease with which my 12 year-old daughter discovered the answer to a simple question I posed to her last night. “What was that song I used to play and sing all the time that you liked by Sarah McLachlan?” My daughter loves to sing– has since she was able to speak. I knew she would probably remember this song so I called her in to ask about it. I wasn’t surprised that she immediately started searching on her iPod Touch–first by name (“How do you spell McLachlan?”), then by album title (“Was it ‘Surfacing’?”). That was enough to get us to the song and I was happy.
Then she took it a step further and started playing a live version of Sarah singing that song. I noted that this live version was different than the recorded one, so she switched and played that one for me. It was then that the reality of her generation truly hit home for me. The go-to way to find information she needs is via the internet. It’s not just words and things are very easy to find. When I tried to explain how I had to work to find things when I was her age, she asked “A card catalog? What on earth is that?”
Times have certainly changed. We are a technologically multi-tiered culture. The newest generation has a fascination with social media; many people can’t live without text and the ability to view everything from a smart phone; yet there are still holdouts who are quite satisfied using a standard landline. Communicating information in a way that makes sense to those receiving it is more important than ever—that’s why One Call Now makes it easy for you to send messages to all the people that matter in your life—in a way that matters to them.
As a deep blanket of white stuff descends across the eastern US, One Call Now is pumping out the calls, texts and emails. Delays, closings and schedule changes due to weather impacted millions of people served by our clients. Our dedicated staff works 24/7/365 so we can effectively Protect, Inform and Engage.
All ten dialing locations were humming; our triple redundant systems and dozens of alternative phone carriers did what was expected. The system just worked.
This morning, even with tens of thousands of homes without power across the mid west and phone lines down; 99.99% of all calls were dialed within our short Service Level Agreement (SLA) time frame.
It’s puzzling to me that One Call Now is the only company to offer an SLA and one of the few with 24/7/365 toll-free, no-charge tech support for anyone needing to send a message.
Our 35,000 clients know these are critical and crucial requirements when deciding what company to depend on when people’s lives and safety are at stake.
For Business Continuity, School to Parent communications, Government emergency outreach, church/synagogue congregation communications and team information; When Messages Matter, We Deliver.
Tuesday, May 5th is election day for many school districts across the country- seeking to fight an uphill battle for taxpayer money in a very tough economy. Even simple renewal levies and referendums are at risk.
One Call Now sends automated notification calls to millions of families every day, and We are pleased to have donated over $50,000 in phone calls to school levy committees to reach voters with their key messages to help get the funds needed for our children.
This season, dozens more are using our help, with professional script writing techniques, and our white paper on how to use the power of voice to win votes.
We recommend calls go not just to parents and staff, (generally called preaching to the choir calls), but to the entire community, and that’s why we donate calls to the entire community for any school client needing help to win elections. We also often provide the lists of voters, or assist in preparing the lists and the calls – also gratis. We set up a separate (feee) account, and donate the calls to the levy committee – rather than to our client, the school; which might force the school to provide calls for the opposition committee, threatening the outcome.
My wife wears a t-shirt that says “Wouldn’t it be great when schools get all the funding they need and the air force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber”.
Until that day comes, One Call Now will do whatever we can for every K12 client to help reduce the dependency on bake sales and help get the funding needed to produce the next generation of highly educated Americans.
We are pleased to have won a National Political Consultants POLLIE award for the best automated school phone campaign in the country; where we used geo-targeting techniques to call voters in wards and precinct more likely to vote yes and avoid calling in ‘NO’ vote enclave areas. That campaign, and a majority of the ones we work on, won overwhelmingly.
If you have a funding issue or levy coming up, call us. we’ll call your voters. Effectively. Quickly, and for even better than cheaply- for free.
Send us a request and we’ll send you the “Top Ten Tips To Win Votes” white paper, by clicking here
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PS- Ward 4 now votes in several of our office training rooms; the county had been seeking a handicapped accesible, centralized facility, and after we moved here in February, we were happy to make it available. We even took down the ‘Vote for the Renewal Levy” signs in the hallway!
One Call Now Offers Notification Service at NO CHARGE for Governments, Schools, Businesses, Religious Organizations and Others in Response to Swine Flu Outbreak.
In response to outbreaks of swine flu across North America, One Call Now, America’s leading emergency notification service, has issued professionally-written influenza notification scripts for use by its 35,000 clients to inform and protect the millions of families currently receiving One Call Now Notification Messages.
The company has also announced a NO-Charge, proactive emergency calling plan for any government emergency management agency, school district, business, religious or community organization that lacks an emergency communication system but will find it essential to inform their citizens, families, staff and congregations should the situation change.
One Call Now’s various comprehensive service plans include clear voice, SMS text and email messages, enabling you to reach tens of thousands of recipients a minute to protect lives and keep people informed.
For Government Agencies, the NO-charge service will provide a database of all published and unpublished numbers for every household to be used by government emergency agencies to immediately send a clear, digitally recorded voice message to an entire town, city or county.
For Schools, the NO-Charge service will dial every family in the school’s student database in moments with updates, instructions and details to keep children safe and parents informed.
For Businesses, the NO-charge business continuity plan will allow company management to reach every employee, stakeholder and customer with emergency communications and plans for staff and clients alike.
For Churches, Youth Sports Leagues and Community Organizations, instant communications to keep families safe and informed is vital; and now easy, and at NO charge.
“We have been providing emergency services to tens of thousands of organizations nationwide for eight years, and reach millions of people every day with voice or text messages that inform and protect. In this uncertain time, with the World Health Organization issuing an unprecedented Phase IV pandemic alert, it is incumbent upon every organization to have the ability to contact their people immediately; even if there is no budget or funds available. That’s why we are offering a no-strings, no-charge emergency communications plan for any organization. Our company mission statement, ‘When messages matter, we deliver’ is not just a phrase, it is part of our DNA, and why this no-charge service is so vital for any organization to have in place if the worst should happen. ” said Leib Lurie, CEO of One Call Now.
“The company can have most new clients ready to send their first test message in a matter of hours, and our 24/7 support team is always ready to train and assist with fast, professional implementation. This includes scripts issued to all clients to be used to inform and help keep every family safer from this lethal form of Influenza. ” said company President Angela Kirchner.
For details and immediate implementation for your emergency communications plan, organization administrators are urged to call 877-698-3262.
One Call Now sends hundreds of thousands of voice messages and phone notification messages a day for schools, churches, synagogues, youth groups and businesses. In every case, making sure the message is clearly undersatood is critical to effective communications.
I listen to dozens of messages every week, and have a few tips to offer based on what we hear…..
1- Have Caller ID set to display YOUR local number and name. Leading notification services offer this feature, it dramatically improves the ‘pick-up’ rate, how many people will answer the phone when it rings and hear your message.
2- Make sure calls do NOT start with the dreaded telemarketing ‘dead air’ syndrome. Some Notification Services start calls the way those pesky telemarketing calls do… with a long pause of dead air. Most parents just hang up at that point. Make sure the call immediately starts with your greeting.
3- Start with a consistent greeting. Make sure you can, and do pre-record a consistent greeting for all messaging from your school or organization. Such as “This is an important message from Heywood Elementary”, or “This is Pastor Bob from United church, with news for you…” It quickly identifies the call and tells the family what to do next, which is simple. Just listen for a moment.
Write down what you want to say before recording the message. Make sure to follow the five “W’s” of broadcast journalism- go ahead, pretend you are a TV anchorperson or newscaster!
Include the WHAT WHEN WHERE WHO and WHY. (and usually HOW- which is a W if you read it backwards)
4- WHAT are you calling about “The Upcoming Meeting has been cancelled”, or “The fundraiser will start Thursday”
5- WHEN is key… If changing an event date or time, be clear about which date is canceled and when the new one is. When announcing a new date, say the day, date and time. I suggest you repeat it.
“The rehearsal for tonight has been changed due to icy roads. The new rehearsal date is Friday at 7PM in the auditorium, that’s 7pm Friday in the auditorium for the changed rehearsal time, pray for a thaw!”
6-WHERE is obvious, if the venue has moved it’s crucial. “The 4pm game tomorrow has been moved from North Field #2 to The South Park, field #3; That’s South Park Field #3, tomorrow at 4pm instead of the published site on your calendar.”
7- WHO… You never know who will pick up the phone, so it’s usually a good idea to say who the message is for. “The youth choir rehearsal will start at 4:30pm instead of 5pm tomorrow Friday”
8- WHY: Whenever changing or moving an event or activity, you cause families to change their schedules to accommodate you. If there’s a good reason, they will understand, but if there’s not, it can appear you are being capricious or scatter brained! So say why the change is needed. If it’s a safety issue, not only will they move things around, but they’ll appreciate your action.You don’t need much detail, but a quick few words make a big difference.
Example: “Due to icy roads…” OR “Due to a bank robbery near the school…” OR “The other team has a transportation issue…”.
9- HOW: Here we mean HOW to confirm message receipt, or HOW to contact you with their availability. The best Messaging systems allow you to ask a poll type question such as “school will be dismissing early due to forecast for more snow and treacherous conditions later today. Press ’1′ if we can drop your child off at home when we dismiss at noon; press ’2′ to say you will call the school to make other arrangements…” OR “To help us plan for the picnic, please use touch tone key to tell me how many people will be attending saturday at noon”.
10- WOW ‘em with clarity: Speak clearly, slowly and avoid slang expressions that may confuse folks at home who don’t know you, but will need to hear and act on your message. ex: “That’s a 10-4 on the re-do guys, game on!” (I really heard this!) when you mean, “The other team confirmed the change so we will have our re-scheduled tournament game today at 4PM on field number 5″.
PS. If your Notification Service offers on-line message reports, check to see that everyone was reached, particularly just after loading a new call list roster. It’s easy to mistype a number, or misread the scribble the parent gave you. Send a test message before using a new roster for a real message!
Communications, whether to a team of 10 or a school district of 10,000 is all about speaking clearly, and including everything necessary for the message to get through.
You may not make the six o’clock news, but your group will know exactly what is happening, when to be there, where to be, who is affected, why the change, how to confirm receipt and they’ll say WOW! what a great communicator you are!
For more examples and detailed ideas, goto www.onecallnow.com
PPS… A phone message is NOT the place to emulate a TV broadcaster by sending a message like this… “There’s a big change coming, details at 11!”
